Thursday Day 6 – Cleanup, Birthday Party and Loss of Steering

Finally the sun is out and the breeze is 20-25 knots.  Cleanup begins. We haul the carpet to dry on the coachroof.  We hand wash our sodden clothes and the boat looks like a junk all day with clothes haphazardly pegged about the boat.  

Washing Day

Its bath time – bliss!  We bathe by sitting on the transom and having someone pour a bucket of salt water over us.  This is followed by shampoo and rinse.  Our final rinse is with fresh water.   

We are running our engine twice a day to charge our batteries and also to make fresh water.  Our water maker makes 30 litres per hour.  Each water making session, we fill our water bottles for on deck (tastes better than tank water) and then fill our tank below. 

Rubbish Duty - we keep all our plastics

Lyn preparing lunch - tomatoes on the floor

Barman John - yey!

Making tonic with the soda stream

Happy Hour resumes

It’s beginning to warm up now we’re in the tropics.  The Chicken Cacciatore we were meant to eat on Tuesday  is thrown overboard as its gone bad. We enjoy a homemade Spaghetti Bolognaise. 

Finally we are able to have a party for Graeme’s birthday at Happy Hour.  There are gifts, party poppers, ouzo, G&T’s, red wine and a happy, humorous, harmonious crew.  The conditions are still rough: big seas, 20-28 knots and bumpy.  We settle in for the night with a usual watch system in high spirits and feeling good.  It will be smooth sailing from here.

Happy Birthday Graeme

 

Blue spinnaker up; washing on kites sheet

Just after the sun sets, the starboard steering cable snaps and is irrepairable.  Luckily we have two steering wheels so we are now reliant on one wheel.  We advise Fremantle Race Control and continue on.  Both cables are brand new and were fitted in preparation for this trip. Incredibly, two hours later the second steering cable comes adrift and we have no steering.  Now an emergency, in the black of night, its all hands on deck.  The boat has gybed. Those who are were sleeping below are instantly awake and scramble up to drop the spinnaker and the mainsail.  The boat bobs like a cork in the once again rough seas, 5-6m swell and 20-25 knots.  We are bare-masted as we re-group to discuss our options and realise we can use the auto-pilot.  We have two options: we are 550 nautical miles from Bali with the breeze behind us or 280 nautical miles from Exmouth beating back into the wind.  We decide to continue on to Bali. Tentatively we start the auto-pilot, hold our breath and yes – we have steerage.  We put two reefs in the mainsail and half unfurl the jib. We realise our race is over and advise Race Control. We are ecstatic that we have steering and deeply disappointed for our race to be over.

Breeze: 20-30+ knots                                                                                            

Happiest Person at Happy Hour: Heather